


the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons

by ransoned



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Metafiction, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:17:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ransoned/pseuds/ransoned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You see, the thing about John Teller is, he’s not someone to idolize.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on my blog in the summer of 2013, back when I used to write a lot of meta about SOA, and it ended up somewhere between ranting and fic.

You see, the thing about John Teller is, he’s not someone to idolize.

 

He returned decorated from Vietnam sometime in the early sixties, and set off to ride the west coast, disillusioned with the less than salutary welcome home from America.

In Frisco, he found a girl ( _a girl_ ) less than half his age, a Gemma of sixteen to his thirty three, and he loved her. She was alone and without family, a recent runaway from the comfort of a small town to the big city, and eager for attentions from the rebellious caste.

Women are made much sooner from children than men, but Gemma was, by all rights, still a child.

A couple years passed, and Gemma gave JT a son, Jackson. They settled in the small town she’d been in such a hurry to escape four years before. He loved her and she loved him and she gave him a second son.

But Thomas was not well and the violence in the brotherhood JT himself had created was escalating, and he no longer felt he had control over his life. So he escaped. He left behind his young wife, his two baby boys, his club, and brokered deals in Belfast instead. He told himself that bigger guns would mean more money for the club, and more money would mean better medical care for his Thomas. He told himself these things and Gemma believed him, up until she didn’t. Visits that began as a week stretched into a month, stretched into Jackson no longer asking when daddy would be home. There was only quiet now.

He took comfort in the words of a priest who believed him to be a good man, and took comfort in the arms of a girl ( _a girl_ ) who was, yet again, less than half his age. Maureen, eighteen, so blonde and unsullied by genetic heart defects to pass onto his children. And so, it was at forty-eight that John Teller found himself to be a father for a third time.

America called him home again. Thomas was unwell and the time for escaping had ended. John left Maureen with kisses and promises he’d never follow through with, and patted the soft hair of baby Trinity.

What JT forgot was that Gemma could leave him, too. He’d left his club without leadership and his sons without a father figure and his wife without someone to hold. So he returned to find that his VP,  _his friend,_  who’d stood at their wedding day, was Gemma’s escape.

Thomas passed away in 1990, barely six years old in the world.

John became angry, isolated. He shut out his wife and his best friend, believing them to be traitors. He penned a memoir, unsure of who it was addressed to, though he poured out his hurt all the same. He wrote letters to Maureen, pining for his secret life. His son, Jackson, idolized him from afar - his daddy who led a club, who rode a motorcycle, who was so strong.

But John wasn’t strong. He didn’t lead. (He rode his Panhead, at least.) He was becoming a liability to Redwood, had long forgotten the meaning of brotherhood, and held the gavel with impotence and inaction. Gemma’s disgust laid heavy around them, curled and coiled like a viper waiting to strike at him for his cowardice.

A semi-truck on 580 collided with his motorcycle. JT held on for three days. 

After John’s death, Clay slipped into his life as if it had always been his. He married Gemma, no longer having to hide in JT’s shadow. He picked up his club, began loaning out money to local businesses and collecting protection vigs, began  _to lead_. He loved Jackson as if he were his own flesh and blood.

Fifteen years later, when Jax picked up an old memoir from the dust of an old shed, he made the mistake of choosing the wrong man to idolize.


End file.
